The RoboSlam crew (Frank, Ted, Damon and Shannon) headed out to Bunclody Public Library in county Wexford this past Saturday to lead two workshops. We taught kids aged 7 and up to build small, hand-held video games that were designed by Frank. The event was part of Ireland’s annual Science Week.

The best part of our day in Bunclody? Definitely the gasps of amazement from workshop participants after they assembled their tiny computers and flipped the power switch “on!”

Many kids said “This is so addictive!” over and over as they played their new games. We even heard kids say, “This is better than my iPod”! They huddled up in hysterical positions with their new little gadgets, captivated and enthralled.

Our first workshop included kids who have coded before using Scratch, but the afternoon workshop was for complete beginners. Throughout the day, every participant left with a working computer video game!

Thanks to our sponsor, toaglas, and the fabulous librarians in Bunclody for supporting this project. Thanks also to our retired colleague from DIT, Charlie Pritchard (aka, off-duty Santa) for helping set this up.

To all the kids, who were 100% engaged and enthusiastic throughout the day, thanks for coming out and we hope to see you someday at another electronics event or at DIT! And to their parents–thanks for raising such sweet and interested kids!

What is RoboSlam?

RoboSlam is an ultra low-cost robot building workshop for beginners using real electronic components. Our aim is to create a recipe for a €10 robot that’s easy to build and easy to teach others to build.